Weapons

[Bugs]

I've looked over some forums and searched around online looking for peoples suggestions on ship designs and prefered weapons. I haven't found any satisfactory answers yet however. I have the technology to build and design pretty much anything. Thus far my go to ship is a Cruiser class ship mostly loaded up with 6 heavy phaser banks, 4 smaller phaser arrays and about 8 PD lasers around it with 2 siphoning beams on the front. It's loaded with main engineering and inertial dampers about 30k worth of remanent shielding. The end result is a ship that moves at 442k FTL and can turn at 132.4 that's reasonably well armored. A fleet of these can intercept and race around the map with impunity and also need no ordanance.

I want to design some other ships specifically with ballistics but other than reading weapon stats I'm unsure of what ballistics I should be going for. Are there any specific favourites out there that people have? I also have nothing agaisnt missles or torpedos considering I'm finding my PD lasers on my current cruisers don't seem to shoot down missles at all (I actually think the PD system is a bit broken, but can't prove it). I jsut want to know a few ordanance weapons that really deliver.

thanks in advance :)

[G-Man]

Ballistics are great for Armor piercing. If you are up against a race that uses lots of armor and has the armor piercing trait then you can pretty much bypass all of that with some sniper cannons.

Also, with your speed, and the right AI settings, the Mass Driver (smaller 6x2 verion of the big cannon) can hit out to 10k so you can 'kite' the enemy, staying completely out of range whilst pounding him.

You are right however in saying that the Phasors are the most powerful in the game.... but only when shipping with enough power storage to fire all guns simultaneously for two seconds straight. Siphoning beams help, but AFAIK they only work when shields are down so that falls into ballistics territory.

I would also have a look at missiles (which I usually spend most of the game using) for thier tracking potential. You can build heavy ships with many multiples of your cruiser's health, stock them with missiles and a mass fab and have a literally unbeatable defense ship that maybe does not have the mobility but can kill your cruisers many times over with torpedoes and 3x1 missiles (forget their name as the mods I play usually rename them) and still can deal with fast corvettes and other swarm units that can often wipe out your shields before you can kill them all.

Speaking of which, often the most underrated module in the game is Plasma Throwers. 1500DPS in a module 50% smaller than phasers and AOE damage in a facemelt package. I can't say how many I've killed with it but it's probably more than all the others combined. Replace the lasers on your ship with ordinance, mass fabs and the same number of of these and see how it anhilliates it. Just make sure you use them in the AI mode that is an upward arrow. These are very effective on anything fast enough to get in someones face (this is why I love kulrathi fighters), but due to the AI in this game you have to build a ship that only has these for weapons or it will never get into range. With the Plasma ordinance tech multiplying that, fun abounds.

As fo the laser cannons. I've heard they are good against Titans and such where missing is pretty hard to do, but otherwise most of thier great damage potential flies off into space.

[Bugs]

okay, thanks for that write up :)

[Bob Vanus]

Plasma's weakness though is the range - With how close you have to get, you run a good chance of getting killed when the other ship goes boom right in your face.

Your best bet would be to design them to be fast and support them with a inhibitor ship - Just a Titan hull loaded with as many warp inhibitors you can fit on it. With the enemy's warp engines down you could warp in the plasma ships right behind them, fire off a few barrages before they manage to turn around, and warp out.

I do similar, although I use Quantum Cannons.

As for the PD type weapons, don't both using the 1x1 PD cannons. You'll want the 2x2 PD turret instead. The flechette AF turret though is currently broke, and has been for about a month.

Laser turrets are inaccurate but still useful. I tend to use them as a AA weapon - The turrets fire very fast, so a few turrets can lay down enough fire to rip fighters to shreds. Really, they are your anti-zergrush weapon. (They also put on a hell of a lightshow. Which is also what I named that ship design. I've also the Rave, same thing but using a combination of lasers and disruptors.)

Edit - If you can, upload a pic of the ship design.

[Bugs]

I have the screenshot of my build but am unsure how to post it here. I only have one screenshot on my profile so it should be viewable from there. Knowing how to post it here would be helpful though ;)

This design was roughly mid game and it's still holding up well on hard. I'm thinking of dropping the forward energy siphon cannons and putting some armor there. The ships main perk is its speed. I can clear the the largest of maps form one end to the other in about 30 seconds on normal speed, they turn so fast that I can toggle from head on attacks to holding a facing position depending on what I'm fighting. The lack of ordanance means no need to restock on ordanance. My only real problem with ordanance is the space it takes away from inertial dampener. I'm toying with dropping the light phaser banks for the Photon ones (under energy torpedos) but it looks like the light phaser banks may be the better bet.

*2 screenshots should be on my profile*

[G-Man]

Seconding the PD advice, they only really make any sense with fighters where the PD is just 1x1 rockets, and even then the Vulcan cannon is better.

[G-Man]

Both of your builds are suffereing from a lack of compromise. You've built your armor to sit internally to your weapons system, so you're hard to kill but relatively easy to disable (as the armor tonnage is behind the weapon units). Especially with Polaron cannons which pass through shields. Also, the Kulrathi Ships are long and narrow so it's a good idea to take advantage of that legnth with more weaponry.

Switch your attention from fast interception. That's all good when it's all good but your ships have no staying power and will need to run from a battle much more often than a heavier design (that makes use of all that space) will.

I have frigates and cruisers that will cut through your armor in the time it takes you to fire your lasers twice and from there - becasue your powergen is so close to your front and rear - you will die almost instantly. (Generators explode, damaging modules around them... and a main engineering blowing is more than enough to take down your ship).

If you want to keep a interceptor role I would put a lot more into frontal and rear defenses. You're going to be fast so assuming you're not fighting other laser beam weapons (which I will identify for you as a weakness of your vessel)most things will either be hitting you in the face as your approach to attack, or chasing you nd hitting your rear as you move places. Double up on that armor up front (use plasteel if it's too much weight) and double up on the shields out back and replace the remnant shield on the side. Cerebus Alpha is better but much too exposed on the top sides. You will have to use these in groups to really negate that.

Personally, I wanted something in-keeping with your theme with a ship like this I would take off a few inertial dampners and put two warp engines on it, so it's still getting the same FTL speeds. Then I would use the extra space for a few shields after relocating the power stations to the center of the ship. You really want those as faw away from gunfire as possible.

If I wanted something inkeeping with how I play, I would add a mass fab and a ordinance transporter then build a few duplicate vessels (with mass fabs), swap the Heavy phasors for 3x1 missiles and the light with 2x2 ones, take away more of the inertial dampners and replace the, wih ordinance, and replace warp engines with standard ones so you have something with similar STL speed but ;ow FTL and build something heavy.

You need heavy vessels to compliment your light. You can't really relly on stirve vessels to win a war as you will always get bulldozed when the enemy attaks in force.

[G-Man]

I'll make a build tonight and show you.

[Bugs]

some good advice there, I suppose I could 'slow' my ships down a bit and bulk up on the armor and reposition my weapons. I would most likely however keep the weapon types and make a 'sister' ship of the same class but with a more ballistic and missile approach. I tend to group my ships up in squads of 9-12 duplicate ships so when they warp in they tend to hit at the same time and can turn and repeat quite quickly. I designed a capital ship to be more of a carrier so it can house about 34 fighter bays and accompany the fleet.

i'm starting another game and will take different strategies into that. Look forward to seeign your ship design.

[UBE Chief]

I personally go for the "hit hard" route, loading up my lighter vessels (Hunters, small fighters, some gunboats) with weapons and maybe a shield or two to help with defence. My older builds weren't that smart (http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=159616059) compared to my newer ones (http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=195076343). Yes, they're still dumb in terms of design, but in terms of raw power, they'll grind through fleets of stronger ships quite easily with just a small squad of just 20 or so ships.

A squad of 20 of my Hunters (http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=195076242) can easily overwhelm a Remnant Cruiser with accompanying Gunships and Fighters, as well as the boarding ships it launches with only 1 or 2 losses. A complete fleet of 40 Hunters and 40 Fighters of mine took down a Remnant Titan with light losses.

It's a shame I didn't get to use my new Gunship, Cruiser and Capital ships...I wanted to see if my designs were any good (I won by creating a Federation...quite boring) Maybe I'll boot up SD and have a go >;3

[G-Man]

You have a running theme of glass cannons atm. Plus I can understand your preference for shiejds as they take up less space giving you more room for guns but it's counterproductive to your style of play.

You see, shields provide great defense over an area but cannot be recharged. If someone breaks your ships shields you leave or it dies and when you do leave you must wait a fixed period for the shield to recharge and theres no way around that.

Armor on the other hand is repaired by Repair Drones. Build a repair drone station and you can send out your glass cannons, run way limping, then spend a couple of secs at a planet and attack the same ships with completely healed vessels for round two. You won't be getting the speeds of FTL you want, but it'll be much easier to play with them because you won't be micromanaging so much and making your ships run away.

I'm currently having to deal with stupid crashes when loading the game so I won't be able to put up screenshots. http://www.stardrivegame.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=9327

[UBE Chief]

Yes, I know that I have that kind of theme, especially with my lower-class vessels. I tend to overpack all my ships with guns, missiles and ammo storages so that they can last in a long and/or heated battle, despite my shields being the only thing standing between enemy fire and vital components. It also seems like the enemy AI doesn't go for that weakness and just tries to go for brute force, just like me.

However, I do tend to cover important areas (engines, reactors) with more/overlapping shields, and I've started to add armour to my Titan. Not much, but it's a start. I rather not add armour to my smaller vessels as they're so easy to mass-produce.

Human Emissary (Cruiser):
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=195076463

Human Dreadnought (Titan):
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=195076527

And, just for lols:
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=159613836

...wow, I do run glass cannons .-.

[G-Man]

The enemy doesn't design ships, that's why. The AI in StarDrive uses you own designs. You can download some ship packs on the officail forusm and they will really up the difficulty of the game because now the AI will have the ability to bring in tougher balanced and heavy ships instead of just your own glass cannons.

[UBE Chief]

Well consindering I only play as Humans...hmm. Maybe I will get those packs, see what I can bring to the battlefield.

[G-Man]

Here: http://www.stardrivegame.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=4790

It really is a pain finding things like this on the forums now. I know that if I didn't know booleans (most people don't) it would be really hard. We need more subforums.

[UBE Chief]

Thanks for the link, Gen :3